How should I love the pretty creatures, 25 While round my knees they fondly clung; To see them look their mother’s features, To hear them lisp their mother’s tongue. And when with envy time transported, Shall think to rob us of our joys, 30 You’ll in your girls again be courted, And I’ll go wooing in my boys. _Anon._ LXIV _A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW._ Stand still, and I will read to thee A lecture, Love, in love’s philosophy. These three hours that we have spent Walking here, two shadows went Along with us, which we ourselves produced: 5 But, now the sun is just above our head, We do those shadows tread, And to brave clearness all things are reduced. So whilst our infant loves did grow, Disguises did and shadows flow 10 From us and from our cares; but now it is not so. That love hath not attained the highest degree, Which is still diligent lest others see; Except our loves at this noon stay, We shall new shadows make the other way. 15 As the first were made to blind Others, these which come behind Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes, If our loves faint, and westwardly decline, To me thou falsely thine, 20 And I to thee mine actions shall disguise. The morning shadows wear away, But these grow longer all the day; But, oh! love’s day is short, if love decay. Love is a growing or full constant light, 25 And his short minute, after noon, is night. _John Donne._ LXV _SONG._ Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauties, orient deep. These flowers, as in their causes, sleep. Ask me no more, whither do stray 5 The golden atoms of the day; For, in pure love, heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair. Ask me no more, whither doth haste The nightingale, when May is past; 10 For in your sweet dividing throat She winters, and keeps warm her note. Ask me no more, where those stars light, That downwards fall in dead of night; For in your eyes they sit, and there 15 Fixèd become, as in their sphere. Ask me no more, if east or west, The phœnix builds her spicy nest; For unto you at last she flies, And in your fragrant bosom dies. 20 _Thomas Carew._ LXVI THE PRIMROSE.